


For me you'd fight

by rayfelle



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M, a little dark, makes little sense, this is a re-upload from the other account
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:52:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akutsu sat next to Ryoma, eyeing the younger teen from the corner of his eyes, taking in the cuts and bruises that were scattered around his exposed skin, marking the boy as someone that no longer belonged to the world of "normal" people</p>
            </blockquote>





	For me you'd fight

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, I just didn't want to lose this one.

Akutsu watched the lifeless outdoor court with boredom, a cigarette, which was slowly burning away, was loosely held between the fingers of his right hand and the ashes were falling on the bench that he had put his feet on. It was a rather fresh morning, the rain had washed everything during the night and the cotton-candy like fog was hiding some of the objects around the teen from his view.

The delinquent sighed and lifted the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled some of the smoke, letting it out in small puffs afterwards. He turned his head on the left, narrowing his eyes when the entrance of the street courts came into his view. He tch-ed and then threw the still burning cigarette on the ground and got up.

With lazy steps he slowly walked out of the courts, stretching out his neck as he did so, shaking of the stiffness that had settled in. There was no point in waiting for someone who wouldn’t come. He knew it all too well. Hell, he pissed himself off with this wishy-washy attitude – hoping for something so… So abstract and impossible.

But he still hoped and waited.

...

The ball hit the wall and then flew back towards Ryoma, leaving a faded trail of yellow behind itself. The teen hit it back with all the force he had, the racket strings strained and whined at the contact, finally giving in and sending the ball towards the ground, where it only bounced off it and flew for the wall again.

For hours now Ryoma was venting out his anger, hurt and pent-up stress here. He just hit the ball again and again and again, the strings stressing out more and more with each hard hit, bending under the yellow ball. There were dark spots on the ground where the ball had repeatedly bounced off, making a twisted kind of pattern. A pattern of Ryoma’s anger.

The teen sighed and allowed the ball to fly past him, the soft fuzz slightly touching his cheek as it passed him. His breathing was ragged; sweat slowly sliding down his skin, making it wet and sticky to the touch and his eyes were closed. The boy just stood there – feeling the cold wind against his skin and tangling up his hair.

“I wish all of this would fall to ruins.”

...

Akutsu was probably one of the first people to already be out. The sun had only risen not too long ago, the earth was still wrapped in its fog blanket. Akutsu walked down the road, his destination the same place as it was yesterday, the day before and the last week. The same grey building, with cold and lonely corridors and broken glass scattered all over. He didn’t go there because he liked to be there or that there was a deep meaning of sorts.

Akutsu went there because _he_ was there. The delinquent had brought _him_ there, actually. After seeing _that_ he just acted before thinking and brought _him_ there – to that lonely building that gave off the sense of abandonment, loneliness and death. It was like watching the destruction of a world being used on a single structure.

“Damn it. Annoying.” He hissed to himself, a trail of smoke following Akutsu as he walked further into the fog.

...

**_THUD_ **

Ryoma coughed up blood and his body hit the wall he was using as an opponent earlier. His golden eyes showed such hatred towards the ones that were standing in front of him now, smirking and laughing from disgusting enjoyment. He spit out some of the blood that was still left in his mouth and stood up straighter.

“When the world will end, so will you.” Ryoma mumbled under his nose and then took a deep breath. He calmed himself down, breathing in and out again and again.

A sick laughter reached his ears, a voice so familiar but now distant made bitter memories rise up from the depths of his unconsciousness, “What’s wrong Echizen, can’t handle the stress?” more laughter, “Oh my, oh my… Was out little baby always like this? So weak and pathetic?”

“Momo-senpai,” Ryoma opened his eyes and looked at his best friend, not anymore tough, “hasn’t anyone told you that bad boys get punished?” he made a smirk of his own and then ran. He ran so fast that the things around him were now just a blur.

...

He finally reached the abandoned hospital, so eerie from the outside, covered in graffiti and braced by the slowly dying vegetation and the ruins of time, speaking of the foolishness of humanity. But he knew, Akutsu knew that inside, inside this crumbling world, was what he was searching for. _He_ was there, waiting for Akutsu to come and wake him up, just like the sleeping beauty in those tales meant for children.

So Akutsu walked inside this abandoned world that was slowly crumbling and dying away. He walked the path that he now knew like the back of his hand, smoke from his cigarette marking the way behind him. He walked past crumbling walls and dying plants, a trail of dried up blood showing him the right way, even if he already knew it.

“Oi, you here?” He called out; finally reaching the last floor that was accessible to humans. The stairs had crumbled and shut down the way to the floors above them, making sure that no one gets in the way of the death that was living in those empty rooms.

 A small affirmative noise fluttered through the empty rooms and Akutsu sighed – he was still here and alive.

...

His breath didn’t come out as it was supposed to, it hurt to exhale and he was coughing up blood at times. It was a sort of pain that you don’t experience that often, it was all knew to Ryoma. But he still ran away, maneuvering through the maze called the city streets. The footsteps of Momoshiro and the others were still quite clear behind him. He couldn’t run as fast as he had wanted to. His body couldn’t do what Ryoma wanted it to do.

Turn, jump, run straight, turn again. They were still behind him. Another turn, duck under the hanging laundry and jump down. Pain shot through his body, but that didn’t stop the teen. He avoided the few people and rand down a dead street, void of the noise of the city and people and life. Only crumbling buildings, monuments of better times decorated the eerie part of the city Ryoma had wandered in.

The first thing that caught Ryoma’s eye was the old hospital building, standing taller than the rest of its aging comrades, giving off silent orders and protecting the peace and quiet of the dead and dying.

That was the place. That will the place where he could hide, a part of him knew this by pure instinct.

As he ran past the dying trees and grass and other plants, damaged by the weather and human beings alike, no longer able to flourish and bloom as before, they were slowly withering away, together with the buildings, Ryoma could feel the faint smell of tobacco in the air. It was as if the wind had refused to blow it away and left it for Ryoma to blindly follow the trail into the lion’s den.

...

Akutsu sat next to Ryoma, eyeing the younger teen from the corner of his eyes, taking in the cuts and bruises that were scattered around his exposed skin, marking the boy as someone that no longer belonged to the world of “normal” people. But, in their own way, they were beautiful. A deep red against the pale white of the skin, slightly purple that seemed to be slowly tearing out of the skin, trying to break free – all of these were the marks of a fighter in Akutsu’s eyes.

“I got you some food.” The older of the two blew out a cloud of white smoke, nodding to the black suitcase by the worn-out bed, “And medicine.”

Ryoma nodded silently, golden eyes looking out of one of the windows that had no glass left in them, taking in the ruins of what was once a place of dreams and possibilities. He didn’t even seem to feel the cold wind licking along his skin. “And so it fell to ruins.”

“Ahh… It did.”

They sat next to each other for a long time, neither moving nor making a sound, afraid to shatter the still graveyard of dreams around them, afraid to derange the decaying of time. It was a silent plea from the hospital that gave off the orders. They were to obey if they wanted its protection and a chance to stay here.

Ryoma finally shivered, tearing is eyes away from the wasteland of abandoned hopes and looked up at Akutsu. “Will you stay with me? You won’t betray me?” His voice was shaking a little, trembling from the loneliness that he felt inside.

...

Ryoma looked for a place to hide, a place to lie down and wait for his chasers to give up. There was nothing he could use now, no little cracks or small openings, no forgotten closets or boxes or cupboards. There was nothing but the crumbling grey walls and broken glass on the floor.

It was cold and painful and he was scared. For the first time in his life he felt the petrifying fear that came along when one could almost feel the Reaper breathing down his neck. It was a feeling of fear that Ryoma never wished to experience.

“Ryooomaaa…! Come out, come out wherever you are!” Momo’s voice was already too close, already almost next to him.

Just a little more and he was done for, captured and chained down so that he would use his skill, his power not for his own good, but for the sake of cruelly destroying yet another team, yet another dream. Invisible chains were already wrapping down his ankles and slowing him down.

Ryoma suddenly ran into a warm chest, the warmth of a human body seeping through his clothes and into his own skin, sending shivers down his back and making his breath hitch in his throat. A hand wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him back and away from the warmth that Ryoma needed so desperately.

Momo’s footsteps suddenly stopped and the sound of a tennis ball hitting the ground bounced of the crumbling walls around them, flying through the empty hospital.

...

The child’s words were hanging in the cold air, lifelessly, like puppets; they were waiting for a command, an answer, for _something_ that might bring a steady answer and calmness to them. Akutsu knew that Ryoma wanted to know, be sure and _trust_ him, if only just him. He had asked this question every time that the delinquent came here, his voice trembling from both the cold and fear that seemed to take over his body every time that his mind wandered off to places unknown.

Akutsu sighed. He took off his jacket and placed it on Ryoma’s shoulders. The teen flinched, but then wrapped the jacket around himself, the human warmth that had soaked into it was slowly crawling up his skin, making it tingle in delightful way, accompanied by the faint smell of tobacco smoke and the scent that only Akutsu had.

The delinquent watched as his companion inhaled the scent that had etched itself in his jacket. It seemed to calm Ryoma down somewhat, his shoulders relaxing and his breath coming out in long, lazy exhales, the warm air making various abstract forms in the cold one as it slowly disappeared.

“Of course I will. And of course I won’t.” he looked away, something deep inside told him to stop looking at the teen and hide his gaze, “We are bound by fate and we are to be one.” He slowly said, the cold air tickling his lungs.

He couldn’t see his companions face, so the expression Ryoma had, the emotions that were now clearly seen in his eyes, the way he tilted his head a little to the right, were hidden for Akutsu. But it was alright like this – he wasn’t mean to see anyway. Not yet.

Suddenly, he was grabbed by his long-sleeved shirt, the cloth barely above his elbow was stretched out slightly and he could feel cold fingers through it. “Un. You belong to me. Because you saved me, you belong to me now. Always will. Ne?” there was something in Ryoma’s voice that reminded Akutsu of madness – pure, raw, untainted madness.

He ruffled Ryoma’s hair and sighed, the _need_ for nicotine kicking in again, reminding him of the addiction that had overcome his strength of will. “Yeah, yeah, _my master._ ”


End file.
